Mission and History

Our Mission:

LSA Family Health Service, founded by the Little Sisters of the Assumption, strengthens and empowers vulnerable families and children by meeting their basic needs for food, healthcare, education and a safe home, in the belief that affirming families in their own dignity improves the entire community.

The first Little Sisters of the Assumption building, on East 15th Street, New York City, 1892

Former East Harlem location on East 119th Street

LSA Family Health Service today.

Catalysts for change for over a century

“These Six Women Come Here on a Mission of Humanity.”
—New York World, April 20, 1891

History

LSA Family Health Service has been operating in El Barrio / East Harlem since 1958. But our roots go back to 1891, when the first Little Sisters of the Assumption arrived here from Paris to nurse the “sick poor” in their own homes with respect and dignity.

Today, as a secular nonprofit agency, we proudly honor our mission, roots and our founders’ choice to value and respect diversity and the differences between us—including race, gender, religion, income, lifestyle or nation of origin.

Those first LSA visiting nurses saw themselves as catalysts for change in the lives of vulnerable families. They believed in what we now call social justice and empowerment, with health and wellbeing forming a cornerstone of strength, just as we still believe today.